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Amanpour
New World Disorder; Raising Spirits; Imagine a World
Aired March 28, 2014 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the weekend edition of our program, where we bring you two of the highlights from this week.
First, a discussion of Putin's shakeup of the world order. With these two officials, one American, one Russian, who are right at the heart of Russia's last big transition. Organizing the former Soviet Union into independent and democratic states.
And coming up later, something a bit different, an interview, a conversation with this remarkable woman, who's singlehandedly shaken up London's West End as she returns to the stage here after 40 years.
But first, when he planned this week's European trip, U.S. President Barack Obama probably didn't imagine that he'd be confronting an expansionist Russia and rallying America's oldest allies to deter any further moves.
But that's exactly what Obama faced as he held key meetings in the Netherlands, Brussels and Rome, determined to reassert U.S. global leadership and make President Vladimir Putin pay for annexing Crimea and redrawing the map.
From President Putin himself, we see a show of force, as he amassed 10,000 more troops, making it now 30,000 poised on the Ukrainian border, although Moscow insists they are just exercises. And that is setting off alarm bells from Kiev to Moldova and all along Russia's Western borders.
Clearly Moscow and the West and Ukraine have to get around the negotiating table again. But what will that take?
Former U.S. Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev worked together as the USSR morphed into the Russian Federation and former Soviet republics spun off independently. When we spoke this week, both were extremely concerned. And Mr. Kozyrev told me that we are now at the 11th hour with the stakes being life and death.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Andrei Kozyrev, former foreign minister; Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state, welcome to the program.
STROBE TALBOTT, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Thank you.
ANDREY KOZYREV, FOREIGN MINISTER OF RUSSIA UNDER PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: I want to start with you, former Foreign Minister Kozyrev, what is your gut feeling? Do you believe that this is just the opening gambit?
KOZYREV: Well, I think it's very much an impromptu kind of show and a lot will depend on internal situation in Ukraine and on international response, too, so, yes, I would be very cautious to pass judgment what happens next.
AMANPOUR: Strobe, you just heard former Foreign Minister say that he couldn't make a judgment and we shouldn't make a judgment about an increased appetite for land by President Putin.
TALBOTT: Well, I think that Andrei used a very, very important word when he said "impromptu" to describe the way in which President Putin has reacted to events. I think he has been making this up as he goes along. So Andrei is absolutely right; it's hard to predict.
But there's one point that's very important. We shouldn't talk about the possibility in the future of Putin going further than just Crimea. He is already going further than just in Crimea. Now that doesn't mean he's actually formally moved in, annexed territory, had a overt invasion.
But through all kinds of assets that Russia has inside of Ukraine, he's doing everything he can to shake the situation up, destabilize the country so that he can have more leverage over what happens next.
AMANPOUR: These are very big concerns that Strobe is raising here, Mr. Kozyrev. And even in that region, for instance, the president of Belarus has said they're very concerned about the annexation of Crimea.
The Swedish foreign minister told me that what President Putin has done is make Russia an unpredictable power.
How does President Putin proceed from here?
How does he get back to the negotiating table, if at all?
KOZYREV: Well, I think what is important, we can only guess what actually happens next. I mean, in practical terms I agree with Strobe.
But what is important for us at this moment, I think everybody, especially inside Russia, is to understand that Russia is at crossroads. It like reached the, you know, end of road and there is a signal that it's the choice. Now it's the choice either to Europe or back to the USSR.
AMANPOUR: Strobe Talbott, President Obama is in Europe and this Ukraine crisis is going to be taking up all their time.
How does President Obama reverse what's happened if possible or deter any further action?
TALBOTT: President Obama's challenge in Europe, which he's already begun to address, is to maximize the coherence, the solidarity, the unitedness of the transatlantic community and to the extent possible the international community so that there will not be a temptation or an ability for President Putin to play the allies off against one another.
So we need a united front.
AMANPOUR: There is a sort of a strain of thought that goes that the West humiliated Russia, that the West treated Russia as a loser and that Russia, especially President Putin, is seething because of that.
How do you answer that?
TALBOTT: Totally false.
Never did any of us in U.S., the U.S. government at the time -- and I'm talking not just about the Clinton administration, but the George H.W. Bush administration before us, we did not regard the peoples of the former Soviet Union and in particular the reformist leaders of Russia including, of course, our guest, Andrei Kozyrev, as losers.
Quite the opposite. We saw them as having seen a way that would actually protect their people from ending up, as it were, on the dustbin of history because the Soviet system had failed in so many ways, notably in taking care of its own people.
And they made a choice to take down that system, to adopt a policy of partnership with the outside world and to develop a modern economy that could be integrated with the rest of the world.
He wants to take the Russian Federation back to a system that is already proved a failure.
AMANPOUR: Mr. Kozyrev, did you feel like you were being treated as losers, as on the wrong side of history by the West?
KOZYREV: Definitely I thought after the fall of the Soviet Union that we have to choose democracy and a market economy. But competitive democracy and competitive economy.
But unfortunately, the Russian elite -- and I have to admit, that our government failed to deliver all that. We delivered partly.
And after that the Russian elite facing the difficulties of transformation, facing the challenge of the reforms, chose the third way, the way around it, that is, take the cash and go to London or New York and leave the rest of it back home under the custody of the former security apparatus.
And unfortunately, that happened in the second part of the Yeltsin administration. And also unfortunately, probably we were not able to explain it in these clear-cut words at that time, that was our fault.
But frankly speaking, the West was rather complacent with this choice. And it's time now to wake up for all of us in Russia and for the West. And the sooner the better, because time is ticking.
AMANPOUR: Did you feel as a Russian that you were made to feel like a loser, that you were being humiliated by the West?
KOZYREV: Yes, we lost to the hardliners. I admitted that when I was retiring in 1995, at the end of 1995, but we are on the right side of history.
We were on the right side of history and it's in the best interest of Russian people. It's in the best interest as Strobe said of Russian modernization, of Russian economy. It's in the best interest to stop now and to come back to European or whatever, pro-Western choice.
AMANPOUR: And lastly, Mr. Kozyrev, do you believe that the West is prepared to take the pain of sending that message loud and clear to President Putin?
KOZYREV: I am not much of a believer, especially in politics. But I do hope that the West, especially Western Europe, recognizes its own national interests. And these interests are very much at stake. The stake is still very, very high. Let me just remind whoever concerned that Russia is still nuclear superpower.
So the stakes might be life and death. And maybe sooner than somebody is thinking. That's what I want actually to communicate, that it's 11th hour for Russians and for anybody else to reconsider.
AMANPOUR: Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, thank you very much for joining me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. To many of us, my next guest is Jessica Fletcher from the world-famous television series, "Murder, She Wrote," a mystery writer and amateur detective solving crimes in a coastal town in Maine.
To others amongst us and of course to our children, she's Miss Eglantine Price, the main protagonist in the Disney classic, "Bedknobs and Broomsticks."
(VIDEO CLIP, "BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS")
AMANPOUR: And now Lansbury's fans are spellbound again, bringing the role that she played on Broadway back in 2009 here to London's West End, that of an eccentric clairvoyant in Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit."
I spoke to Dame Angela Lansbury at the Gielgud Theater. It's her first time back on the London stage in 40 years and though she opened last week to rave reviews as usual, she's also had to work through unbearable personal pain to get here.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Angela Lansbury, welcome to our program.
ANGELA LANSBURY, ACTOR: Thank you. Thank you very, very much.
AMANPOUR: It's a great pleasure. "Blithe Spirit" is fabulous. You have so much stamina.
Where does it come from?
LANSBURY: That's the $24,000 question, truthfully. I don't know.
AMANPOUR: But when you see these amazing reviews, how old are you?
LANSBURY: Eighty-eight.
AMANPOUR: I mean it's incredible. I saw you on that stage. You stole the entire show.
LANSBURY: Oh, I hope not.
AMANPOUR: Everybody said that...
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: -- "Coward Revival Stays Young at Heart Thanks to Blithe Spirit Lansbury," "Dame Angela Making It Look Effortless at 88," "Lansbury Makes a Spirited Return to Her Old Haunt."
It's great.
LANSBURY: It is lovely, isn't it? It's lovely. I'm thrilled to death.
No, it's marvelous to get that kind of recognition in Britain after all these -- all these years, you know. And a...
AMANPOUR: What did you like about this play, "Blithe Spirit?"
LANSBURY: I love -- I love Coward. I love the humor. I love the language. I love the appearance of this woman. I love all of her nonsense and carryon. I think it's such fun.
AMANPOUR: You have played an enormous number of roles. You've had many awards, many nominations.
Plus we have an amazing clip from "The Manchurian Candidate," where you played a baddie to perfection.
We're just going to play that.
(VIDEO CLIP, "THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE")
AMANPOUR: How did you become, from a young girl, to Angela Lansbury the film star?
LANSBURY: Well, because as we say in the business, the movie parlance, the break, you know, where was I? I was working in a department store, actually, getting $18 a week, you know. And kind of making change as a cashier and all kinds of little menial jobs of that sort.
And I had been a drama student in Britain before I ever went to America. So I was prepared. I was ready to be an actress. And I wanted to get a part, either in a play or a movie or anything, just to exercise my talent.
AMANPOUR: What was it like playing alongside all these major beauties but never being the heroine or never being that character?
LANSBURY: Oh, well, it took its toll on me finally. And I finally decided to ask for my release from MGM, which I got. And I was very happy to leave.
Ad they just didn't know what to do with me. They really didn't have the roles for me, which I could play strong women.
AMANPOUR: How did you go then from that frustration to, you know, "Murder, She Wrote," and all the other films and plays that have made you so established?
LANSBURY: Well, I'll tell you, really, you could compartmentalize my career into three parts, MGM, theater, musical theater -- huge. I've had a huge career in musical theater.
So I decided with my husband that this was the time if I was ever going to do television, I must do it now. So I did it in 1984. And --
AMANPOUR: That was the famous "Murder, She Wrote."
LANSBURY: -- that was the famous "Murder, She Wrote" --
AMANPOUR: Jessica Fletcher.
LANSBURY: -- which today is still watched worldwide and I can tell you that at least two-thirds of the audience during the previews of this show were people who watched "Murder, She Wrote."
AMANPOUR: How difficult was it to end the role of Jessica Fletcher with which you had become so associated; some people even think you are Jessica Fletcher.
LANSBURY: Right. It wasn't difficult for me at all. I was actually up to here with it -- not up to there with Jessica, I was up to there with the continuous -- the regimen that was involved; the hours were dreadful, you know, and you have no life at all.
AMANPOUR: This was 12 years.
LANSBURY: No life for 12 years. Yes. So the only life I had was with my husband, which was wonderful. We did it together.
AMANPOUR: You mentioned your husband.
LANSBURY: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And obviously, I wanted to talk to you about it, because it was clearly the most amazing relationship from everything I read, 53 years you were together. And he died in 2003.
LANSBURY: Yes.
AMANPOUR: What was the secret, apart from this partnership, which must have been fundamental, to your longevity together?
LANSBURY: I've always said it was mainly our mutual interest in what we were doing together. He had a successful business life. There was no question about that. He was a huge agent at William Morris and also had a production at MGM.
So he had a -- he had had a very fulfilling life and was very highly thought of in the business.
The fact that he was prepared to give it up for the purpose of helping me to have this career in television was a decision that he -- it was a very carefully arrived at decision, which we felt -- if we could do this together, it would make all of this getting up early, doing, you know, making our whole life this project, worthwhile.
And, you know, it's a funny thing, you don't make a great deal of money in the theater. And most actors will give their eye teeth to get a good television series. And so for me he recognized that it was -- as a business move, it was a very good one.
He never felt that he was being shafted by being the husband of a, you know...
AMANPOUR: He just never...
(CROSSTALK)
LANSBURY: -- a star, no.
AMANPOUR: And you obviously, for understandable reasons, you sank into a deep funk, depression, after he died.
LANSBURY: Yes.
AMANPOUR: You said I nearly went off the rails. Tell me what was that like and how did you get out of that?
What brought you out of that?
LANSBURY: It's hard to say. But I knew -- it -- I just knew I had to wait and the moment would arrive when I would be able to come up to the surface again and look around and see how I was going to mend this awful kind of rift inside myself.
So I waited. I didn't make any moves myself. And...
AMANPOUR: And I'm sorry.
LANSBURY: I thought, what would he want me to do?
And I knew that he would have wanted me to continue. I just knew that. There was never any question in my mind. I just kind of had to wait before I was able to do it.
So it came as a bolt out of the blue, actually. My darling friend...
AMANPOUR: Emma Thompson...
LANSBURY: Emma, suddenly, out of the blue -- and I hadn't -- I actually didn't know her at that point, but she became a good friend and she invited me to come and play with her in "Nanny McPhee."
(VIDEO CLIP, "NANNY MCPHEE")
LANSBURY: So it was a very rare and a rather difficult job for me. But I did -- I did it and it was fine. And I loved all the makeup and the nonsense that I was covered with. And it was -- and I -- it got me one of myself and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was wonderful.
AMANPOUR: And here you are, obviously, many years later, but here you are still doing it.
Do you ever think of retiring?
LANSBURY: I don't, really, no.
(LAUGHTER)
LANSBURY: I don't. Truthfully, I don't.
AMANPOUR: Thank you very much for joining me.
LANSBURY: Oh, it's been such fun.
I loved talking to you.
AMANPOUR: A pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Now while Angela Lansbury had so many spellbound, it was the playwright Noel Coward who wrote "Blithe Spirit" in five days during the Second World War. His contribution to the war effort, a light moment about the serious topic of death as London was bombed in the Blitz.
And coming up, we remember the Allied prisoners of war who made a great escape 70 years ago this week.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, Russia's land grab in Crimea has heightened tensions throughout Eastern Europe, rekindling memories of World War II when Stalin's Red Army carved up countries like Poland and devoured them with its Axis partner, Nazi Germany.
Now imagine a world where one bright memory from that same dark time still quickens the blood in the cause of freedom. Survivors gathered and flowers were laid to remember 70 years ago when some 76 Allied prisoners slipped out of their prisoner of war camp with forged documents and improved civilian clothing hoping to make it to freedom.
It was called "The Great Escape," and it was famously depicted in the Hollywood blockbuster of 1963 starring Steve McQueen. It showed how hundreds of prisoners of war planned and executed the daring breakout. As in the movie, the real Great Escape was launched from a Nazi prisoner of war camp located in what is now Western Poland.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE GREAT ESCAPE")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There will be no escapes from this camp.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Hundreds of prisoners spent more than a year secretly digging tunnels code named Tom, Dick and Harry. Now Tom and Dick were discovered by the guards, but Harry survived, running 100 meters beneath the camp.
Of the many prisoners who tried, only three avoided capture and made it back to England. Of the rest, 50 were gunned down by the Gestapo, a war crime that Adolf Hitler personally ordered.
Those 50 and their fellow prisoners were remembered today with flowers and ceremony. But Poland and the rest of Russia's anxious neighbors may be contemplating another kind of great escape to come these days.
And that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always contact us at our website, amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.
And that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always contact us at our website, amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.
END
